Chuckleberry
Mills Brewing

 

A 750ml corked and capped bottle, bottled in November 2021, with a best before date of November 2026. Poured into a 3 Fonteinen stemmed glass.

Appearance: A very nice reddish dark magenta colour with a two finger pinkish head that had decent retention while eventually settling to a ring around the glass and leaving some lacing.

Aroma: Tart, gooseberry, redcurrant, red wine grapes, funk, wood, and a splash of blackcurrant.

Taste: What you’d expect from the aroma, tart, light to moderate sour, gooseberry, redcurrant, funk, earthy, wood, and blackcurrant notes.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

Overall: Balanced and easy drinking, and my first time trying something with chuckleberry in it.

my first from these guys, love everything about it, and am so fully intrigued by these guys already, dying to try another one. huge thanks to my buddy for scoring this, and being willing to open it late night after a long day of beer drinking, we kind of had to because it was freezing in a too cold beer fridge, but sometimes thats the best time to break out the gems, and this certainly is one. pretty cool packaging on it, and i had to google what a chuckleberry is, but this is money, presents like lambic, some green glass funk wafting up from the almost electric pink brew, nice fizzy carbonation too. mature bretty nose, definitely wild fermentation here, and more lambic points of interest evident, the aged hops, the turbid mash, neat that they employed these, do they do that for all their beers? wet animal, hay loft, super astringent sour fruit, high tannins, bigtime oak, and some trace of the bordeaux barrels also present, light spiciness to from someplace. the flavor is awesome, lots of fruit up front, between rose wine and red currant or cranberry tang, even more oak than i could smell, and a ton of funky brett happening, good complexity to the ferment, again very lambic-like, a high compliment to it. it is exceedingly sour, especially as it warms, this fruit in particular, and this amount of it, have contributed to this more than any bacterial element it seems, but certainly a combination of both is happening. fresh flowers, raspberry, vanilla, and good red wine notes round this out, but its the fermentation that impresses me the most, super mature and wild, well bottle conditioned, expertly blended. the perceived acidity slows it down a little in terms of being drinkable, but its of special quality no doubt. loved this, thankful for it, and my friends to share it with, and i am stoked to see what these guys get up to next. put mills on the map!